Ill Wind Page 0,74

right up against him. I couldn't stop touching him, tracing the hard, yielding planes of his chest, the flat ridges of his stomach. My hand slid down, and I felt a thin layer of waterlogged fabric gathered at his waist.

"If they can't see us," I breathed into his mouth, "get rid of the bathing suit."

Before the words left my lips, there was nothing under my fingers but wet skin. Nothing to hold me back.

David braced himself on the ledge, watching me with those unbelievable eyes the color of burning pennies, as I stripped off the wet bikini top and tossed it onto the side of the hot tub. Before I could reach for the bottoms, his hands were on the job, sliding them down my legs.

Chapter Eighteen

"Is this against the rules?" I asked. I grabbed the edge of the hot tub, one hand on either side of him, and straddled his lap. "Tell me this is against the rules. It feels too good to be legal."

His voice was a hot, breathless growl. "You refused to bind me-I don't have to tell you anything. Ah! . . ."

He was hard as steel, hot as fire, and he felt so good going in that I shuddered and collapsed against him, holding him in me and feeling life pulsing between us. "Tell me," I whispered. His breath was fast and hot against my neck.

"It's forbidden," he said. "And it's stupid. I need to-to stay-don't-"

"Don't what?" I moved my hips slowly, a liquid circle, and felt him tense against me. "Don't do this?"

His hands came up, gliding up over my breasts, my neck, to hold my face like something precious and fragile. No more words. No more anger. We lost ourselves, fire and water dissolving into each other in a perfect union of opposites, and when I cried out, it was into his mouth, and all his strength, all his magic didn't keep him from joining me.

At the very second that I was completely alive, completely alight, I felt the Demon Mark make its move, like a taloned hand clenching around my heart. I came crashing back to reality with a jolt like electrocution, and the sensation of being violated, being ripped away from him, was so real that I panicked. Lost control. Lost myself. I felt it pushing deeper in me, pulsing like some terrible child, and on the outside David's strength kept me from going under the water, but I was convulsing, crying out, and all the fire in the world couldn't melt the ice forming in me, forming in sharp angles and ridges and forming into . . .

"No!" I heard him say, and there was helpless pain and fury in it. Not just flesh, not just fire-passion. "Stay with me. Don't let go!"

My body was going limp, shutting down, all my resources turned inward against the invader. Was this how it had been for Bad Bob? Had it really hurt this much? God, I didn't want to hurt. I wanted to go back to that warm, sweet place in heaven, go back to David's arms.

David put his hand flat above my heart.

Hot gold poured into me, melting ice, forcing the black tendrils of the Demon Mark to a stop, but it held tight to what it had gained. It was bigger now. Darker. Full of cool, malevolent life. Tapped deep into the roots of where I lived.

When the pain receded and I could breathe again, I realized David was holding me against him like a child, my head on his shoulder, stroking aimless patterns on my bare skin. No, not aimless. Where his fingers touched, I felt stronger. Warmer.

"Shh," he whispered, when I tried to speak. "My fault. My fault. Let me help."

"Your fault?" I repeated blankly. It was a huge effort to raise my hand and touch his face, but a rich reward when I saw some of the tension ease out of him. "How the hell is this your fault?"

"You asked me if it was forbidden. I shouldn't have let myself do this-"

I put my fingers over his mouth to shut him up. His lips moved, not with words, but with silent kisses.

"Don't ever say that," I said. "Don't ever."

We stayed like that, him on the ledge, me cradled in his arms, for more than an hour. No words, no impulse for more; he stroked my